PUBLIC ART

CEC ArtsLink sees public art as a uniquely powerful means of engaging new audiences while activating and encouraging young creative talent. For this on-going activity, our program staff, together with visionary US artists such as Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, Kendal Henry, Charlie Todd, Marina Zurkow and many others, has developed discussions and hands-on projects which have lead to the successful production of exciting new work in the public sphere throughout Russia and Central Asia. CEC ArtsLink has also helped position talented artists from the regions within cutting edge public projects here in the US.

Global Art Lab was proud to work with a group of talented young artists from Central Asia working in public art in 2011. The group came to NYC in March to meet with organizations and artists working in the fields of public art and socially engaged art and visit a wide range of contemporary arts museums, galleries, and arts centers. Fall of the same year US artists Mark Jenkins, Gabriel Reese, Kendal Henry, JD Beltran and others returned the visit and led workshops and public projects in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. More information can be found here: GAL in Central Asia.

In 2012 Global Art Lab continued this program and brought a group of young artists from Russia and Central Asia working in public art to New York City for 10 days full of meetings, workshops and studio visits. These activities included a workshop along 14th Street in Manhattan with Ed Woodham and other staff from the Art in Odd Places festival, studio visits with prolific streets artists Swoon and Gabriel Reese, and presentations by the Wooster Collective.

In fall 2012, Global Art Lab launched a completely new international festival of public art in St. Petersburg called Art Prospect. Eighteen American and Russian artists created original works for this four day festival along Liteiny Prospect. Performances, video projections and street art were accompanied by workshops and talks by the participating artists, which included public art luminaries Sheryl Oring, Paul Notzold and Global Art Lab collaborators Kendal Henry and Ed Woodham.

Artist Evan Roth shared his digital projection graffiti techniques in Perm, Yekaterinburg and St. Petersburg, Russia in 2010 and 2011. In June of 2009, St. Petersburg artist and curator Pavel Shugurov attended the Americans for the Art’s Public Art Network’s Annual Meeting in Seattle where he met and conferred with dozens of artists and arts specialists.

Work in the public realm takes many forms; in 2007, Izhevsk-based ice sculptor and artist Anfim Khanikov traveled to Las Vegas, Nevada to join US artists Marina Zurkow and Katie Salan for a public art project.
Ekaterina Basalaeva and Ilya Belenkov, dancers from the Wampeter group in Novosibirsk continued their collaboration with New York-based dance ensemble Tryst. They performed a site-specific piece together at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's Sitelines Festival.